“Do you know why my kitchen is now completely off-limits to your sister and her baking?”
Deryn winced again because suddenly Victoria was too close, and was that a wooden spoon in her hand? Did she need to gesticulate this wildly? It had been an honest mistake…
“I had ham planned for the tasting menu. A new recipe I was working on. Two fifteen-pound hams were delivered, and Deryn here signed for them. Do you want to tell Rhiannon what else you did with those hams, Ms. Heartthrob?”
Deryn winced a third time and spoke without lifting her face from her hands. It came out muffled, and she didn’t care. She had faced Victoria’s wrath too many times as a kid not to know what was coming if she didn’t confess.
“I swaddled them in kitchen towels, named them Hamuel and Hamantha, and took selfies with them.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And I might’ve posted the selfies?”
“Deryn Lyn Crowhart!” Victoria’s shout was lost in Rhiannon’s roar of laughter.
“At least you didn’t stick peppermint toothpicks into them as you did as a kid when we tried to decorate the ham with pineapple slices.” Rhiannon was laughing so hard, Deryn wondered if she’d start crying any moment now. And why did she have to bring up that toothpaste-tasting Christmas ham? She was ten, let it go!
Victoria clearly shared her thoughts, because she waved her hands at Rhiannon to try to stop her.
“It’s not funny, Rhiannon. I had to scrap the whole ham thing, change the menus themselves, and pay for new advertisements for the tasting program. With fish on it. Because this one here has a gazillion followers who all saw the damnHamantha and Hamuel posts from the Tavern, because of course she tagged it?—”
“I thought some advertising would be good?” Deryn peeked out from between her fingers before promptly closing her eyes as Victoria whirled on her.
“Is food safety at my place of business a joke to you?” The note of seriousness broke through, and Deryn’s embarrassment turned inward. She’d fucked up. Again. The family’s famous fuckup in all her usual glory.
Damn it.
Victoria dropped the spoon in the sink. It clattered loudly in the silence of the kitchen. Deryn’s heart thumped in her throat.
“I need you to find a different place for your social media shenanigans, Deryn. I mean it. I understand the demand to keep your ‘content’ flowing, that it’s your bread and butter and caviar. But if you’re staying, as theCawseems to think, you will need to bake somewhere else. Khalid is skittish around you, and I’d rather not have my customers think that we play with their food before we cook it.”
Rhiannon pushed the plate of figs closer to Deryn.
“Okay, okay, this is legitimately hilarious, and not for a second do I believe this will hurt the Tavern. Your reputation is ironclad, and you are on your way to adding to your Michelin star. You know it, I know it. Maybe Deryn doesn’t know it, since Heartthrob here lives in her own world, but…” Rhiannon gave Deryn a pat on the thigh to take the sting out of her words. The sting was still stinging, however, as Deryn listened to her sister continue. “Why don’t you have electronic menus yet? It’s all the rage. You’d have saved a lot of money and a lot of trees, Victoria.”
Victoria cocked a hip and sneered at Rhiannon.
“Listen here, Miss I-Restore-Old-Ass-Things-For-A-Living-Yet-Have-No-Respect-For-Them, I am an old person who lovesold-people things. Paper menus are one of them. They will bury me in a coffin made of paper menus, you hear me? You will be there in all black—which will not be a departure for you—and you will wipe your tears on a paper menu.” Victoria’s sneer widened frighteningly. Deryn cringed. Victoria went on. “Other old-people things I enjoy are fucking drivers not leaving their headlights on bright, not speaking to a machine when I call customer service, and not having to download damn apps every time I buy a damn product. My fridge and my walk-in freezer don’t need an app!”
Rhiannon gave her aunt an unblinking stare.
“I sense I hit a nerve?”
Victoria threw her hands in the air.
“I am all nerve, Rhiannon Elizabeth! Leave my paper menus alone and find Deryn a new kitchen before I use that spoon for righteous purposes!”
Deryn watched the back-and-forth between her sister and her aunt as if it were the Wimbledon final. Rhiannon clearly knew when to stop flying too close to the sun, so she shrugged, popped another fig in her mouth and finally turned to Deryn. Her gaze was tender.
“Crow, Cat, & Possum is under reconstruction, and the most generous estimates are closer to ten months till it will be available for anything, let alone have a working kitchen. Plus, baby sister, I imagine you’d need something a lot more professional than what it had to offer even before the fire.”
Deryn lifted her face fully and laid a hand on Rhiannon’s forearm. The magic spiked, flowing freely from one to another. It was a miracle in itself, not just the magic of it, but the outcome of Rhiannon’s self-imposed decades of starving her power.
“I’m glad you’re back.”
Deryn did not realize she had spoken out loud. Rhiannon’s eyes filled with tears, and Victoria’s uncharacteristically tactfulsilence told her as much. Deryn coughed, popped a fig in her mouth, and desperately looked around for a change in subject. Rhiannon cleared her throat as well, the awkward moment stretching, the kitchen becoming stifling. As Deryn was about to jump out of her skin and out of her chair, the door banged open, and she could swear everyone in the room exhaled.
“Did someone die? I know we’re all anticipating it with my forty-fifth birthday just around the corner, but surely it’s a bit early for a wake?”
Ceridwen was a picture of serenity and mischief, and yet the joke didn’t land for Deryn. Instead, it scraped her raw, abrading the already exposed nerve endings.
Rhiannon’s head shake didn’t help. It was Victoria who finally stepped up and, as usual, stepped in it.
